Valentine’s Day is this week and there are many of us who don’t have a date, the energy to care, or the desire to celebrate on a Tuesday.
But we can all appreciate a box of chocolates.
I have an affinity for assorted chocolates in heart shaped boxes. I buy them for myself…on February 15th, or as I like to call it “National Half Priced Chocolate Day”.
It’s the blessed day when left over Valentine’s candy gets marked down and sold to the savviest shoppers. You’ve gotta get there early. By 9am, the Valentine Isle has already been heavily picked over by chocolate loving opportunists.
This year, in the name of research, I decided to pay full price for some chocolates ahead of time.
I sampled a few brands and put together a little guide to the best (and the worst) assorted chocolates. Bonus, I paired them all with trashy reality tv shows.
You can't just sit in the dark and eat chocolates. That would be sad. Better to turn on your TV and watch other, self destructive people be sad. That’s a much better use of your time.
Plus you can do it any day of the year. Get ahead of the game and purchase your chocolates in time for the 14th, or wait to score some half priced chocolates to enjoy at a later date. Reality TV and Chocolate are always in season.
Here’s a breakdown of four chocolate assortments I sampled and the shows they were meant to binge with.
We’re going to start with my favorite reality tv show and the tastiest of all the chocolates I tried….
Survivor + Sees
This is a real let them eat cake moment.
If you’re going to sit around and watch people slowly starve to death, you might as well channel your inner Antionette and pair it with the most delectable, ridiculously overpriced chocolates you can get your hands on.
See’s Assorted / All Milks : Decadent chocolate fit for a queen. You don’t even have to tolerate those icky dark chocolates taking up space in the average peasant box.
Sees has long been considered the gold standard for fancy candy. They make chocolate suckers for goodness sake! Their chocolates are extravagant and delicious. You can’t just march down to the store and buy a box either. At least not in Alaska. I had to special order my box.
That’s what makes Sees the perfect pairing for Survivor: the indulgence of paying too much for the best chocolates and shipping to boot. It all adds to the delicious feeling of superiority as you sit on your cushy couch, in your warm house, watching someone struggle to hack a coconut apart in the hopes of some meager sustenance.
Full Disclosure : My first choice for this category was an assortment by the chocolatier Christopher Elbow. They’re only available in Kansas City or San Fransisco. You can get them through the mail but the shipping is shockingly expensive. More than the (already expensive) chocolates themselves. I needed to buy eggs this week, so no elbows for me.
Fortunately, I had the chance to try them last time I was in Kansas City. Christoper Elbow chocolates are truly decadent. They look fancy. They taste fancy. If you don’t feel fancy while you eat them, you lack imagination. They’re whimsical and unique. If you’re ever in KC or SanFran, get a box to stash away for the next season of Survivor. You can laugh and count your jewels as you watch the castaways suffer.
Next up we have some hard truths, served up in the form of….
Catfish + Lindt “Assorted” Chocolates
Catfish / To Catfish / “I got Catfished”
Catfishing : the act of conning people online into thinking you’re someone you’re not. All you need is a fake profile picture, a little snake oil salesman charm and someone willing to believe anything for love.
Enough people are falling madly in love with internet imposters that there’s a whole show dedicated to the problem, and that show is Catfish.
It works like this: Someone suspects they've fallen victim to a catfishing scheme. So, they write the show asking for help. The hosts (Nev and Kamie) show up, do some internet sleuthing and fly across state lines to hunt down the catfish. The show always ends with an unmasking.
Have you watched catfish? I have watched too much catfish. Too much to fall for Lindt’s empty promises, that’s for sure.
The pretty pink box advertises “12 assorted chocolates”. I took that at face value. What reason did I have to suspect Lindt was a pulling a fast one? The promise of caramels, pecans and coconut enrobed in that luscious Lindt chocolate was so enticing.
As it turns out, it was also too good to be true. The “assortment” included four similar truffles. No caramels. No nuts. No coconut.
The kicker is, the evidence was right there for the taking. Had I done minimum due diligence, and flipped the box over, I would’ve seen the picture showing that these were not the ooey, gooey assorted chocolates I wanted them to be.
I might as well have been on an episode of catfish. Where no one bothers to investigate. They would rather believe their online lover (whom they’ve never met in person) has refused to FaceTime for nine years because they were “too shy” or “only have a flip phone”. Girl, nobody has a flip phone anymore.
Tsk Tsk Tsk.
The Lindt chocolates, like 99% of the paramours on Catfish, were a real letdown once they were unveiled. The picture I had in my head was way more exciting than the real thing.
Oh well, sometimes we have to learn our lessons the hard way.
If you’re into watching other people learn lessons the hard way, check out “Catfish”. If you have preteen/teen kids at home, watch with them. Kids are especially susceptible to internet predators and Catfish is an eye opener.
Next! If you thought that was bad, get a load of…..
Love Is Blind + Ghirardelli Signature Collection
In my opinion, Ghirardelli’s sins are even more egregious than Lindt’s sorry “assortment”. Where Lindt pulled a halfhearted switcharoo, Ghirardelli actually tried to be assorted chocolates and failed, miserably. They had the audacity to advertise caramel and not deliver.
Unforgivable.
Let’s start with the front of the box. It features a beautiful array of three elegant chocolates, leading one to believe that there are more to be discovered underneath the surface. Unfortunately, no. That’s all there is.
Ghirrardelli makes good chocolate. The chocolates are fine. But don’t lead me on. Don’t pretend that you’re bringing more to the table than you actually are.
Ghirrardelli’s inability to deliver and my bitter disappointment left me no choice. There was only one appropriate pairing for the shallow, misguided offering: Love is Blind.
You would think from my scathing pairing, that I do not like Love is Blind. You would be wrong. Love is Blind is an unfailing guilty pleasure that never leaves me, the viewer, disappointed. The contestants on the other hand, rarely get so much out of the deal.
Is Love Blind? Well, for three seasons, men and women have gone on camera to prove that it is. They date in “pods” where they can hear each other, but never see each other. The couples only get to meet (cute?) if they get engaged.
It’s every bit as absurd as it sounds.
There’s always some dude trying to figure out if the girls are thin/hot with thinly veiled questions about fitness and food. Women try to signal their own desirability with hints about their ballet dancing careers and instagram followers. Most of them are completely dishonest (with themselves and everyone else) about their readiness to marry.
It’s an honest to god shit show. A panacea of insecurity, immaturity and delusional behavior.
Ghirardelli’s misguided attempt at the V-day chocolate game aligns well with Love is Blind contestants falling so, so short of marriage material
You can’t say “I’m a caramel” and expect that to be enough. No, you have to do the work. If someones is led to believe their getting a silky, sticky confection, they’re going to be pretty bummed when they bite into a waxy, flavorless lump of lies.
And now we all have trust issues. Thanks a lot Love is Blind and thanks for nothing Ghirardelli.
At least when someone does something dumb, and you’ve tired of yelling at the screen, you can throw the shitty chocolates at them.
Okay, let’s wrap this up on a positive note, shall we? The last pairing I have for you is a couple of old standbys that have stood the test of time...
American Idol + Russel Stovers
At first glance, this pairing seems obvious. Both the Russel Stover brand and American Idol have been around forever. They just keep showing back up, year after year, with the same formula. You know exactly what you’re going to get.
Boring, right?
Except, maybe not. The two actually have more in common than you might think. Sure, both are the proverbial dinosaurs of their respective realms, but they are also surprisingly delightful.
Consider this your opportunity to revisit them.
I’m a die hard Whitman’s girl. That’s what my Grandma bought and that’s where my loyalty lies. This year, in preparation for this piece, I bought a box of Russell Stover’s. I was fully prepared to be underwhelmed. In fact, I already had a T.V. pairing in mind. I figured it belonged with some obscure, boring show no one wants to watch.
Imagine my surprise when the chocolates were not only good, but better than any of the brands I tried so far…including Whitmans. I’m sorry Grandma.
I knew immediately that the only appropriate pairing was American Idol.
Here’s why….American Idol has been on the air for 22 years. Like anything that sticks around for that long, it eventually became a cultural caricature of itself.
Like a box of Russel Stover’s, as American Idol remained on the shelf and never really changed, I passed it over for more highbrow options and never went back. Abandoning it for novelty.
But guess what? American Idol is still here and it’s actually better than ever. The show got a reboot in 2017 when it was purchased by a new network.
Up until that point, the original judges left one by one and were replaced by a revolving door of zany, misguided guest judges. Some were better than others, but the show always had a mean spirited vein to it and audiences grew tired of watching famous people mock average, everyday contestants.
Then, the revamped show gave us new judges.
With Katy Perry, Luke Bryant and Lionel Richie at the helm, the show has taken on a much more positive and heart warming vibe. They have a natural chemistry and genuine compassion for the contestants. Gone are the days when they brought in terrible singers simply to laugh at them on national television.
A new season airs on February 19th. The perfect excuse to hit that half price chocolate sale. Grab a box of your favorite Russell Stover’s assortment and invite a friend over. You can get all sugared up together watch the always fun audition episodes guilt free. Share your chocolate and be the cheering section for giddy contestants as they sing their faces off. What’s not to like about that?
And that’s it!
If you don’t get a chance to celebrate Wuv…Twue Wuv on Valentines Day, hit up that holiday isle and have a little celebration of your own on the 15th.
Enjoy whatever you choose to do this week and come back on Thursday for the weekly bouquet of goodness. See you Then!
In Homer you can buy Sees chocolates at some of the shops like The Art Shop Gallery or Northwind or even The Homer Book Store. It’s a fund raiser pretty much all year round for Hospice. I feel it’s my duty to help them out! Yum yum!